Favre affecting Jets’ mentality

Good read here from sportsline.com. Article discusses how Favre, along with the acquisition of a number of high quality free agents, has helped to shift the Jets back to a winning mentality. It does seem like a quality team with some exciting offensive players (Coles, Cotchery, Leon Washington, Thomas Jones, Chris Baker, Dustin Keller, Bubba Franks). Favre will have plenty of good receivers to throw to, decent protection with the bolstered O-Line and they may have a better defense. But the gist of the article is that the mentality really seemed to shift when Favre arrived.

To me, the most impressive of Favre’s records besides the streak, has been the fact that Favre has had 1 losing season in all of his NFL years. That is simply amazing to me. He is a winner – winning is something that just comes naturally to the guy. So, while it may seem a bit questionable that the Jets would ship out a potential starter (Pennington) to make room for a 38 year-old guy who may call it quits after a year, maybe it makes some sense. Even if the Jets don’t go far in the playoffs or don’t even get to the playoffs, they must have figured that the chance of at least having a winning season with Favre under center hovers around 94%, so why not get the franchise back on a winning path so that Clemens or whoever takes over can ride a positive wave forward?

It’s hard as a Packer fan to read things like this. I know there are still those of you who will disagree with me on this, but I am excited for Favre’s opportunity there and I am starting to believe he could be up to something special there. Favre has gone from the smallest market to the largest one and something is telling me that things are falling in place for a huge send-off for him. As a Packer fan first, huge Favre success would be a bit hard to take, but as a Favre fan too, I’m sure I’ll be able to muster whatever would need mustering, to root hard for the guy.

10 Responses to “Favre affecting Jets’ mentality”

I’m still torn on this. Part of me is still thankful for 16 years of great memories from Brett and another part of me is still hurt and angry at how he acted the past few months. So I’m trying to just take the “what will be, will be” mentality and not pay too much attention to what Favre and the Jets are doing. I’ll just focus on the Packers.

I do see how having Favre under center could help a team’s mindset. He’s a living legend and I do think he has quite a bit of natural charisma – partly because he’s very confident in what he can do. Sometimes one guy is all you need to start making a team believe in itself and that can do wonders.

I am not torn about this, and won’t be until the Packers meet the Jets in Tampa. There’s no downside to a great Favre season. In fact, every win that brings the Jets closer to the playoffs is a step toward a better draft pick for GB. Every NFC team they beat is a help the to the Pack.

Beyond those practicalities, how can we not root for the guy who reinvigorated the Packer organization, who led the team to a Super Bowl win, and who won 3 MVP awards, NEVER missed a game in 16 YEARS, and brought winning back to Green Bay? If you say you’re a Packer fan, you cannot but help be a Favre fan. He’s the best and most important player in the history of the franchise.

I hope he wins the MVP, the AFC championship and plays great in a Super Bowl loss to the Pack.

It’s easy to write articles that emphasize the subjective. Who can prove you wrong? I know of no greater subjective than attitude. When the bell rings for the first game we’ll all know what is really going to happen.

Certainly the rules protecting the QB to an extreme have added to the longevity for the position. Favre is a very good QB and could indeed have a great year. Or not. I wish all the success in the world to him. When all is known about the breakup, we may see more clearly who the real antagonist was. At this point I’m not willing to take sides.

My allegiance is to the Packers. Always was and always will be. Tonight should be the best game yet to evaluate the resulting change to our team. The Packers must perform at a much higher level than they have been. I don’t care if they win. I do care if they perform.

It’s so difficult to gauge how the Jets thing will play out. There were times during Favregate this summer when Favre seemed as determined and fiery as ever, but at the same time, he’s going to a division where he’ll face the Patriots twice and where there are plenty of swirling crosswinds come November/December…Will he embrace it and be the stud we all know, or will he ultimately look like the Freezing Old Man at Soldier Field from last year?

I could see the Jets going 6-10 or 10-6. Neither outcome seems surprising.

There were several other key people who turned the Packer organization around. Favre was not “the guy” he was one of a group of guys.

This myth that Favre somehow single-handedly turned the team around is really tiring. How many Super Bowls did Favre win without Reggie White? Ron Wolf? Or Mike Holmgren?

How long would Favre’s career have lasted if Wolf didn’t believe in him and if Holmgren did mold him into a reliable QB out of sheer force of will? Anyone think Favre would be going to the HOF if he spent his entire early career under the tutalage of Glandville in Atlanta? Me neither?

Favre did not do it single-handedly, I agree with that. And Holmgren in particular deserves tons of credit for helping Favre become Favre. But there is no denying that Favre was a major force in “reinvigorating” the Packers during the 90s – and importantly, he helped the team maintain its winning tradition after White, Holmgren and Wolf left.

I’m fully supporting Brett. I’ve got all my Packer memoribilia around my computer – and Brett the Jet on my screensaver. I am hurt, too, that he chose to play elsewhere but I honestly feel he had his reasons and TT and MM had theirs. So I’ll support all of them. It’s the “right” thing to do, for me anyway.

Now, if he’d ended up in Minnesota, I’d have a target on his face. Just sayin’…..some things aren’t forgivable.

Favre was certainly a major part of the turn around. But I’ve seen so many comments (usually from the national media) proclaim silly things like Favre “lead” the turn around, or “was responsible” for the turn around or some other such nonsense.

If you were to go back in time and poll Packer fans in 1996 about who was the leader of the Packers or who was the best or most important player on the Packers, I bet 7 out of 10 would have told you “Reggie White.” It was also Reggie White that changed the perception that Green Bay was the NFL’s equivalent of Siberia.

I’ll dismount the soapbox right now, but this is an enormous pet peeve of mine.